


Home let loose

by The_girl_from_the_river



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Dauntless Faction, Dauntless has hazing rituals, Gen, I added one, They are literally a faction entirely built around their hazing rituals, just for fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22821799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_girl_from_the_river/pseuds/The_girl_from_the_river
Summary: There is more to the initiation ritual than we thought. Takes place just after zipline.
Kudos: 8





	Home let loose

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Veronica Roth's book or anything from the divergent series.   
> This was just for fun. I got the inspiration from my rockstar basketball team.  
> Hope you enjoy :)

Zeke is the only one still lost in the sky. I picture him a hundred stories in the air, straddling the roof and oblivion to strap himself into the harness. What if he falls, or straps himself in loose? What if he falls where no one can catch him?

My worries are for naught. 

His voice reaches us before he does, whooping and hollering with glee. He hurtles towards us like some deranged angel from on high, changing from speck to blur. He undoes his harness while still in motion, and plummets down at high speed. We hardly have time to link limbs, and almost drop him when he hits them. I don’t think he’d even notice. His hair is past any semblance of order, and the grin on his face stretches just beyond sanity.

He stands up, or more scrambles about as we put him down. 

“Everybody made it out alive?” He looks around, and chuckles. “We have a good batch this year, usually one or two of the straps break.” He tousels Uriah’s hair, and his brother glares back with false outrage.

“So you’re all survivors, huh.” he put his hands on his hips. He glances at Shauna. She glances at the person next to her. We all look around at our neighbors. Purpose is apparent in the member's eyes. The rest of us can only observe, and be confused. Something is going to happen. The question is what.

Shauna looks at Zeke. “You know the way?”

He doesn’t answer, merely looking at her and then saying “Race you!” So that’s where Uriah gets his sass from.

I am probably the least surprised when the lot of them unexpectedly break into a run, with Zeke at the vanguard.

I take off after them, yelling at Uriah. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“No!” He shouts back. “Zeke didn’t tell me about this part!” He sprints to catch up with me. 

Our feet pound upon the asphalt, rhythmic in the disorder. We’re headed away from the Dauntless headquarters towards an abandoned portion of the city. My breath becomes more labored, and I nearly don’t notice the buildings shrinking. With the diminished size comes well built and elaborate structures. Steel gets replaced by stone carved with divets and whorls.

We slow before a domed four-story building. Its paint is chipping and its face is littered with windows caked in dust. But time has not hidden its magnificence. It is not a one-hundred story building, but it holds its own by pure design. It was once white with red trim, although the paint is peeling. Its door frame and overhang are made of dainty stone lace, and curved windows litter its face. Dust cakes what it can, but this must have been simply a piece of art in times past. 

Everyone falls silent as Shauna addresses us. “Welcome! To the hall of screams!” I lean forward with excitement. Hall of Screams? Zeke cuts in.

“Called this because it is said that the only sounds that can be uttered in this building are the screams of little boys and girls.” If I wasn’t panting, I’d catch my breath. He holds us rapt. “Time to prove you’re Dauntless. Again. Actually, never mind. You all are Dauntless. This is just for fun.” He grabs the door’s handle, which is a bar rather than a knob. We all lean forward to see within. He wrenches it open, as if it were very heavy. 

Before I can see in, he shouts something, and there's a mad dash inside. “What did he say?” I shout at no one in particular. No one answers. 

The rush stalls halfway down an aisle bordered by red chairs. I almost run into Uriah, and he looks down at me.

“He said, the last one on the stage is a Pansycake.” He fills me in, a smirk on his face. I don’t reply, but leave the aisle and go down a row of chairs, to see what the holdup is. 

“Oh.” The whole building is a single room, built in sizes of grandeur. The stage is no exception. It is taller than even Uriah with his arms outstretched. Taller than any of us on each other's shoulders. There is no way we are getting up there by climbing.

I run my eyes around the vast space. Four carved and dust-covered balconies climb the walls. I can tell from one glance there is no way from them to the stage. I spend a moment gawking at it all, and then focus myself. How do the members expect us to get up? I think suddenly of Christina, who I left at Headquarters. She’d be attempting to drag the secret out of Zeke, who is unceremoniously reclining in one of the chairs. I feel a small pang of regret for ditching her.

I glance around again, trying to distract myself from the voice in the back of my head. As I do, I notice a door I missed during my first perusal. It is grimy, with a sign that says something on it. I walk closer, and pull Uriah with me by the arm. He objects, but I quiet him with the mischief that lights up my eyes. The sign read Auth riz d pe sonne onl . “I think I found a way in.”

We have to split up nearly five times. There are many dead-end hallways filled with rooms of faded mirrors. We eventually navigate through the abandoned maze to a staircase with a door at the end.

This door’s sign had been dusted off by someone, and reads in bold red letters BACKSTAGE. 

“After you, Stiff.” says Uriah with a flourishing bow. 

I raise my eyebrows at him, but climb the stairs and open the door.

Backstage is lightless, and I at one point have to untangle myself from a curtain I cannot see the top of. 

There are painted structures resembling the faces of houses, castles, and kitchens. Gardens, pubs and throne rooms tower above me. Looking around in wonder, I push past the final curtain onto the stage. 

The stage floor is black, but covered in dust. There are cleaner places somewhat in the shape of footprints. People have been here before. I can’t see anyone on the ground below, they are too far below. I walk towards center stage, Uriah behind me ogling at all the lights and balconies.

The members notice me first, and they slip quietly through the door in back, before our fellow initiates spot us. “Oy! How’d you get up there?” someone shouts. 

I point at the door in back. “Through there.” They all rush back down the aisle, and I dangle my feet over the edge of the stage. Uriah lays on his back gazing at the dormant stage lights as though they are stars.

“You didn’t seem to like the zipline.” I remark to him.

“It was fun,” he replies. “...after it was over.” I laugh, and the older members walk in. I lay down, with my feet still dangling. Their proportions are distorted from such an angle.

“What’s so funny?” Askes a boy between Uriah and Zeke’s age.

Uriah answers before I can. “Your face.”

The boy replies by pushing his nose in with the toes of his boot. Uriah sits up coughing. I follow suit without the exaggerated hacking. The first initiate rushes onstage as I reorient myself.

After her, a great rush of people board the stage. The last one- Zeke’s proclaimed pansycake- is Lynn, the girl with the bald head. I remember my squashed toes, and feel no pity.

Zeke pipes up again. “Ten minutes. Pretty good. The worst we’ve gotten is two hours.” 

Shauna smirks at him. “Nice of you to leave out that that was your group. And that you were the last on the stage.” That makes Uriah burst into laughter like a popped balloon, just as loud, and just as startling. Zeke swats at him, and he quiets himself, a giggle escaping him every moment or so.

“Anyway,” He draws out the word, “good job all of you. But that's not the real reason we’re here.” I look around at everyone else, and realize what he’s talking about, just as he begins to tell us.

“Remember what this hall has been christened?” A murmuring goes around, and Zeke nods. “Yes! The Hall of Screams.” He says in a slightly deranged accent. 

The older Dauntless begin shifting around, as he speaks. Following their wordless direction we close ranks. We’ve soon formed a circle of entangled arms and raw excitement. 

This is Dauntless at its best. A family of those ready to raise the roof, celebrate life, and support those willing to do it with them.

“Tris, you start.” Shauna says. There is only one thing she can be talking about. I glance around at the group of bedraggled but glowing faces, all high on the camaraderie of the space.

And I begin to yell.

It passes around the circle, picked up and added on by everyone. It flows through us like a whirlpool of entwined emotion. Pulling us to the middle where crazed faces contort in mingled shouts.

And the space yells back, matching our sound, multiplying it until we’re engulfed. The very air I breathe is alive with the primal echoes.

It breaks my ears, who can’t handle the sheer size of our ecstasy.

It tugs at me.

Until I cannot distinguish part from whole.

This is what it means to be home. To lend your soul to a place. To be surrounded by people who do the same.

I am lit on fire. I taste again the wind, miles above the earth. 

And I let my animal loose.


End file.
